It is increasingly common that consumers seek service from business concerns using the telephone. For example, a consumer seeking to place an order, schedule a delivery, file a complaint, or query an account balance may place a call to a centralized number provided by a business concern. It is well known that businesses often provide such numbers as so-called toll-free “800” numbers or the like. Some toll-free sites are so-called “virtual call centers,” where callers interact with a “front-end” interactive voice response unit (IVR or VRU) before their calls are routed to agents at call centers at different geographic locations.
Due to high call volumes and limited system resources, calls received at a virtual call center may be queued according to the order in which they are received. A caller sometimes may have to wait on line for an extended period of time before an agent becomes available. There are a number of disadvantages in keeping customers on hold. First of all, such long and boring experiences often result in customer dissatisfaction. Second, running out of time or being impatient, some customers may prematurely end the call, which may result in loss of sales. In addition, keeping a number of phone lines actively connected to a virtual call center for a long time also means more costs for the host business.
A few solutions have been proposed to alleviate these problems. Some solutions attempt to estimate a length of time that a caller may have to wait before a call center agent becomes available. The estimated wait time is typically announced to the caller periodically when the caller is on hold. Another solution goes one step further by not only estimating an estimated wait-time but also offering to call the caller back after the estimated time period expires. However, these solutions only provide limited options for the caller and are not flexible in their implementations.
Other problems and drawbacks also exist.